


Uncommon Harlots

by TopShelfCrazy



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, F/M, Interrupted reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-19 01:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5951026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TopShelfCrazy/pseuds/TopShelfCrazy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl's life is interrupted by the appearance of a dead man. But following the trail of this abomination can only lead to further horrors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncommon Harlots

The winking eye of the night goddess spread only a little light into this humid night, but even that was obscured by numerous wispy clouds. A girl slunk around the corner of a plastered house, wary of being seen against the pale whiteness, wishing the moon had been completely blind.

The girl was Arya, for tonight at least, she had given herself that allowance. She worried it was a betrayal of the Many-Faced God, but he had betrayed her also; that day she had seen a dead man walking about, and if the God of death was not keeping his captives, what was the point in sending him more?

She crawled on her belly under a lit window, then inched up the wall towards the ledge slowly, palms slightly softened with sweat as they slid over the plaster, her chest held a hairs’ breadth from the wall so there was no scrape of fabric. Her cloak was slung about her widely to hide the outline of a human form from any watchers. Perhaps it were just a sack leaned against the wall.

At first she only listened, to sounds she had already heard while making her advance; a dull brushing, the occasional creaking of leather, and now and then little clatters of metal. There was no crackle of fire but a fair amount of light spilled out into the night. Candles then, or oil lamps. It was an affirmation of what she suspected, calming the confusion she had been reeling with for hours.

She brought her head up the wall alongside the window, rising higher than the sill, hoping for the sound of movement to determine where the room’s occupant was. Her troubles were compounded by the sound of hinges and scraping wood, light footsteps coming into focus. _Ugh, two sets of eyes to be wary of._

She realised, too late, that she should have had a second pair of eyes herself. A cat could spy in plain view. She cursed herself for being too overcome with emotion to think clearly. Arya focused for a moment, hoping to get the attention of any feline allies nearby. But this was not the canals, always littered with discarded pieces of fish and scraps. No, this was a very small but rather concealed villa on the outskirts of the city; down alleyways, under an arched gate so low a man would have to practically crawl through it, through the grounds of a grander villa, another gate, another alley, a low wall with no way to pass but over the top of it, and finally around two more blind turns to reach the only door and window the building must have had, unless there was an opening in the roof. It was a very suspiciously well-hidden place for someone who usually couldn’t much be bothered to hide.

_A very good place to kill someone._ Arya had only a knife on her, but everything else tonight seemed a custom made opportunity for murder. A very secluded place with many walls between them and other ears, and surely no-one coming upon this house by chance. _It might be weeks before a body was found._ But it would have to be two bodies, it seemed now, and Arya didn’t know if the second person deserved to die.

“Ready to sleep?” A gritty and deep voice almost startled her as it broke the silence. She took in a deep breath of cold air, cursing herself for the mistake, hoping she hadn’t been heard. “I’ll be out of your way soon,” it continued. The sounds of metal and cloth all came together in a lot of banging and clunking. _Armour_. So he was still a soldier. _But currently exposed_. She could not hear the shifting of mail as the sounds of someone moving around the room continued. Was this truly fated?

“No, I… don’t wish to sleep yet,” A sweet voice murmured apologetically, and Arya gasped another lungful of chilly night air. She knew that voice too, she would swear it. But who was…? It couldn’t have been…

“I would talk with you a little, if you will,” this woman – undoubtedly a woman – asked, in a way that suggested she didn’t think her request would be granted.

“We’ve talked enough today,” the stupid oaf declared. Arya waited with much better controlled breathing, but no more was said for such a long time, despite the air being heavy with something unspoken she was itching to discover.

“We shall speak of it tomorrow, then?” The woman asked with a surprisingly sudden amount of steel in her voice. This surely wouldn’t go over well. If they started yelling, she could probably sneak into the house unheard.

“No, we won’t,” the man shocked Arya by replying with just as much steel, but without raising his voice even a little. But any argument could be a distraction, even a quiet one. She contemplated leaving the window to edge towards the door, approaching them from behind, but she realised she wanted very much to know what they were talking about before she positioned herself to kill them. If they should both die, that is. _Will you be able to do it, when you see him? Or will you falter?_ No-one would not falter. But No-one had no reason to be here; didn’t know this man. So it could only be Arya that confronted him.

“I will speak, even if you will not. I will speak, and you will listen,” the previously timid woman’s voice rose like a wave smashing against the bow of a ship sailing into a storm. Arya felt her own internal conflict raise in pitch to match the one inside the house. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of what she would do when she cornered him, only that she must do so.

“Will you pry my ears open, then? Or perhaps I should go fetch water; feel free to chirp your little heart out while I’m gone,” the man snickered as he spoke, and Arya _knew_ that laugh. _I have to see him._

“If you go I will follow you. I don’t think you’d like me sharing what I have to say with every ear on the streets,” there was fire now, as well as force, and Arya was curious about the lady too, as she maddeningly slowly peeked the corner of her face around the window frame.

“You want to be trussed up and gagged like a pheasant, did you say? You’ll have to forgive my hearing – I am short an ear,” the Hound snarled, and just in time to hide Arya’s gasp. She worried she would be overwhelmed when she saw it was him for sure, but instead it diminished to a trivial detail. There, standing straight with eyes flashing, was her sister, Sansa! Or her mother, but this lady’s hair was darker, and her mother was dead. It must be Sansa!

“You will not be my captor,” Sansa said, but it was just as her mother used to speak, not like Sansa who was simpering or whining. Arya half-hoped it was her mother, risen from the dead. “You said so yourself, and even if you hadn’t, I would not allow it.” She pressed her hands down the front of her dress, which was no gown but simple cotton, yet the gesture was as powerful as any Lady Catelyn had made.

The Hound had his back to Arya, but now he half-turned to her, and she froze. But before she could move he swung back the other way, and began pacing back and forth in front of her sister, who watched him with serene coolness.

“You said they speak of the boy holding Winterfell as having a _direwolf_. It _must_ be Rickon if he has a direwolf!” Sansa spoke slowly and clearly, as though repeating something already said many times before, to a slow child. _Rickon?_ Arya gaped unashamedly. _Rickon?_

“Pfah! What do they know of direwolves? What do even your northmen know of them? Had anyone seen one before that bitch died in your father’s path? It could be some overgrown dog for all you or anyone else knows. They _want_ to see a true Stark with a true direwolf, so that’s what they’ll see!”

“Well I have to see for myself. We don’t have to go announcing my name and-,“ her reasonable tone was interrupted by the Hound’s much angrier one.

“And you _will_ see. When the wars are all over and every army gone or dead. And not a moment sooner!” He still wasn’t really yelling, not like he’d yelled at Arya, but between his pacing and obvious unrest, she knew her chances were good now for making her way into the front room unnoticed.

But she didn’t move.

“I am done with waiting. I have waited and waited, since the day they took my father, I have done nothing but wait, and what good has it done me?” Sansa asked bitterly, her eyes pinned on the Hound like it was no effort to match his glare.

Suddenly he was in front of her sister, grasping her shoulders to still her slight flinch of surprise. _I saw that move before he made it_ , Arya thought with relish, the realisation floating on the top of a rising pool of glee at seeing and hearing the names of her lost pack. _Not soon enough to react, but I saw it._

“It kept you alive,” he reasoned with her, his meaty hands rubbing up and down her arms alarmingly. But Sansa did not look alarmed.

“It kept me captive,” she all but whispered, her eyes lowering. The Hound released her and lowered his head as well, stepping away and looking for all the world like a kicked dog. He withdrew into the corner of the room, out of Arya’s sight.

_Is he ashamed?_ Arya boggled. What was her sister to him? _‘Your pretty sister’_. Words from her past life returned to her, far uglier words than that, and the knife strapped against her ankle pressed solidly into her skin.

“You can’t ask me to free you into certain doom,” he implored, but harshly, more a demand than a plea.

“You can’t ask me to stay another man’s prisoner!” Sansa snapped back at him, and her words were as sparks on brittle wood. A loud crack filled the air as something struck a wall, and careless of being seen Arya jerked her head around the windowsill to see the entirety of the room. A patch of broken plaster marked the wall behind the Hound. The Hound, just as she knew him, dark with anger, his scars twisting with it. He did not glare at her sister but at the wall he had punched, as though it offended him.  

There was silence, broken only by heavy breaths. Arya couldn’t quench hers, but she kept it in time with the Hound’s, kept it hidden.

“You’re right,” he gasped out, reluctant and painfully. He slunk over to the bed; little more than a wooden frame keeping straw together, which creaked as he slumped onto the side. “I can’t keep you,” he said ruefully, shaking his dark hair. “You haven’t been safe in so many years, I thought you might have a taste for it, but mayhaps it’s a woollen blanket on fresh wounds – torment from comfort,” he sneered. Arya couldn’t see his face but she _knew_ he was sneering.

“It’s nothing like that. You can’t know how it healed me, to be able to finally feel at ease, finally be free of secrets and lies and schemes,” she pursed her lips _just_ as much as was proper and not petulant. “But not knowing the truth of my brothers’ fate is a wound of its own, and I always knew this place was but a reprieve. Did you believe there would be lasting peace in my life?” Sansa’s plaintive tone could not draw back the Hound’s gaze.

“I had hoped,” he confessed. He stood up like an old man, and actually _shuffled_ past Sansa towards the door. Gods, she could be hiding behind that doorframe, probably kill him just by tripping him over.

“I’ll look into a boat for you on the morrow… and whatever supplies…,” he rubbed at his own face like he could smooth out the rippled skin. “You let me know whatever supplies you need.”

“ _I_ need?” Sansa inquired, her voice losing both its strength and softness. “Surely you mean _we_ ,” she smiled at him like she used to smile at Joffrey, Arya thought with a grimace, but the Hound was no Joffrey and when he finally looked at her and saw her maudlin face, the life returned to him sharply.

“No, there’s no _we_. I said I would get you safe, and I did. I have. You want me to get you in danger again? Surely that’s breaking my vow, my _only_ vow,” he spat his words with ragged heaving breaths, and there was emotion in his timbre Arya had not heard before. It sounded strange and false, but Sansa seemed to take it true.

“You said you would kill _any_ who hurt me, not just some,” she countered.

“Well if I took you back to those blood-soaked snows that would have to include myself,” he bit at her.

“So you would just leave me alone, then?” Sansa asked mournfully. “Friendless?” She swept out her hands pleadingly. “Comfortless?” She circled them onto herself, coming to rest under her graceful neck, and looking at him demurely.

“Don’t you dare!” He barked, swinging his fist down to impact his thigh. Not the thigh she had seen weeping and bleeding, she noted. “No, you can lead me about using my cock as a leash to the market to buy you a cake or a bolt of silk, but not to anywhere your life is at stake!”

Sansa spun away, and then back, as though unable to comprehend his words. “I do _not_ … how can you say such a thing? That I _use_ my body to control you? Like Petyr wanted? Like a common harlot?”

“Common harlots want coppers, not cake! I would have thought you’d been in _this_ city long enough to learn that it’s the _uncommon_ harlots that won’t deign to touch coin with their own hands. You could be one of those courtesans, floating by on a house feigning to be a boat, probably with a little mask of feathers and beak so nobody too poor can see your beauty for free,” his hands came up her neck and clasped her cheeks as he spoke, masking her face behind his solid fingers.

And suddenly he punctuated his shocking words even more bizarrely by dropping to his knees in front of her sister, not like a knight honouring his Lady, but a confessor before a figure of the Crone.

“I’d give all that finery and richness to you if I could, little bird,” His rasp was no softer when saying soft words, though at least they weren’t barked at her now.

Sansa raised her hand to gesture at the wall, which Arya glanced at quickly; quick enough to return her eyes to see that hand connect with the Hound’s face; his unburnt face, but with enough force to make the crack of flesh struck hard. Arya’s heart froze in her chest.  She flicked her knife out of her breeches cuff without conscious thought, remembering his all-consuming anger, and the time he struck her on the head. She couldn’t let the Hound hurt her sister, even if Sansa did deserve it. But mid-way through the shadowed window she registered that the Hound had not moved, and so she too did not move.

“I don’t want those things!” Sansa seethed at him. “I don’t even want the cake and silk, if that, if you… I thought all you did was for love of me!” Sansa wailed, turning from him and collapsing, head and arms folded under to form a sobbing pile of pretty colours.

Suddenly alert, Arya scanned the rest of the room. Was this a performance for the sake of someone else present? Someone she hadn’t seen? Where else could one hide? There; a chest large enough to hold a small child, if it were otherwise bare. The cupboard was too shallow; the walls smooth plaster with haphazard cracks, not a single straight line large enough to be a moveable panel. Might one be hidden behind the cupboard? Did they know _she_ was here?

Her attention was snatched away from her search by the sight of the Hound crawling to Sansa on hands and knees, raising his huge paws up to rest on her back, exactly like a mournful dog comforting its master.

“You would have them all from me, even if you never let me touch you,” He whispered, both resentful and contrite.  His voice was a deep rumble Arya was only able to make out because his dry rasp cut his words into sharp sounds that pierced the same shadows she hid in.

Sansa’s head rose in an auburn shower; her weeping cut suspiciously short, though there were true tracks of glistening tears on her cheeks.

“I’ve told a thousand lies to others,” she sighed at him, “but never to you. Maybe you won’t believe me, but, even if there were no money for silk, or anything but brown bread, I would still want your touch.”

Now the Hound turned his head from her, like dancers mimicking the movements of each other in rhythm.

“You want an apology from me, little bird? You won’t get it,” he gruffed. “Just because it’s ugly, doesn’t mean it’s not true. And just because I know what you’re doing, doesn’t mean I can resist you.”

It took Arya a moment to realise she was furious. It had been so long since she’d felt something so powerful, so personal. _How dare he?_ How dare he do one of a hundred different possibilities she could think up, all of them unacceptable.

“What do you want from me?” Sansa asked, reaching her arms around his neck. “You seem to be the only man for whom the more I give of myself, the less he wants.”

“Don’t lie. When have I ever turned away from what you’ve offered? But I feel more _guilt_ with every day, and you can’t tell me I shouldn’t,” he made no move to embrace her in turn.

Then Sansa rose to her feet, and keeping her arms around his neck, beckoned him up to join her. As though pulled by a collar, he stepped up before her.

“I would not presume to tell you how you should feel, and I hope you would do me the same favour,” Sansa said with pure sweetness coating an iron core. “Will you come with me?” She asked on a breath of uncertainty.

The Hound moaned like he had under that tree in the Riverlands.

“ _You_ keep _me_ captive, little bird, not the other way around,” he confessed, earning a happy sigh, and her sister falling fully against him. His arms came up to catch her and then there was no hesitation in their embrace.

This was worse than her years of watching hundreds of filthy men bleeding, vomiting and shitting into buckets, Arya felt. She wanted to _be_ here, with her family, but right now she also wanted very much to be anywhere else.

He pawed at her bodice shamelessly, pinching the flesh of Sansa’s modest breast between his palm and oversized thumb. Sansa gave an even more shameless squeak, but didn’t even turn her face aside. Their heads moved forward to touch firmly, their faces thankfully obscured from Arya’s sight. _It must be like kissing a plucked chicken_ , she decided.

She felt a little angry at Sansa too. For playing the harlot? For manipulating such an obvious simpleton? For _enjoying_ herself? She didn’t know what was true here and what was false, so how could she know how to feel about it?

The Hound had managed to pull her laces open and shoved both his arms down her dress as soon as it was loose enough to allow them. His hands must have been roaming all over her, Arya supposed, though it looked a bit like Sansa’s dress was suddenly full of panicked rabbits. Her sister was finally protesting, but it was with words of “be gentle” and “the seams will tear” instead of cries for help that Arya could capitalise on to stage a noble rescue.

She was distinctly _annoyed_ to realise that she finally had to admit to herself she had been anticipating meeting the Hound again, seeing his face when he saw her, finding out if he would be glad to see her; proud of her for having come so far. And yet if she came in on them _now_ , there was no mistaking that he would take an axe to her again.

The pathetic duo had fallen onto the bed, _right_ in front of Arya’s face, and still not even seen her. _I could have killed him fifty times by now_ , she thought petulantly. _How was I ever afraid of him?_

It entered Arya’s mind what was _about_ to happen. She didn’t know whether to be horrified or embarrassed. She almost wished she hadn’t seen the Hound, hadn’t followed him. Almost, but to see their faces again was worth it, worth knowing _this_.

She slowly withdrew, careful to keep her pace slow as she inched away, despite the increasingly frantic noises that were whipping her to bolt like a maddened horse.

She wanted desperately to call out to Sansa, to hug her and punch her and yell at her and cry with her. She wanted to tell the Hound that she would keep sending him back to the hells no matter how many times he escaped them.

But she couldn’t now! She couldn’t, she had to wait and she could feel herself shiver from the waiting. It was all the Hound’s fault, for touching her sister, and Sansa’s fault, for touching him back and not weeping so Arya could defend her. But especially the Hound’s fault.

Arya wasn’t sure which of them she was angrier with.

But No-one had no opinions on the matter.


End file.
